


red in, red out

by mahariels



Series: tamar shepard [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Backstory, Earthborn (Mass Effect), Gen, Unpleasant Backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 05:38:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6553120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahariels/pseuds/mahariels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>tamar shepard on earth, 2164 - 2171.</p>
            </blockquote>





	red in, red out

She's been in _this_  orphanage for about a month of psychiatric observation before she decides she's had enough.

The matrons lock the doors at night but it's not _hard_  to break out if you care at all. The orphanage is falling apart, pretty low tech, and still uses _keys_  on doors attached to hinges. So it's really just a matter of time before Tamar steals a pin and picks the lock on her bedroom door. 

She walks down the hallway, balls of her feet first, so she doesn't wake anyone up. The other kids are all sleeping, because they don't care. Each day is the same, waking at the same time, eating at the same time, going to sleep at the same time.

Today's different. Today's not like other days. Today, Tamar's on a mission. She's fully dressed in her day clothes, not her pajamas, and she's got all of her limited belongings in a little sack slung over her shoulder.

Head matron's office is at the end of the hallway, but she's never there at night. They lock the boys and girls in their cages and they go home to their own beds. She'll be in so much trouble if she's caught, but getting locked in the basement isn't that scary. It's just the dark, and it's just being hungry. She might be only ten years old, but she knows the dark, and she knows being hungry.

Getting into Head Matron's terminal is a little harder. Tamar isn't that great at hacking, but no one here thought to really protect the files. They're just orphans, after all. Just kids no one cares about or wants. Nothing important. It takes her exactly fifteen minutes to brute-force her way in, the glow of the screen lighting up her serious little face.

Her fingers itch with possibilities.

She could do anything she wanted. Mess with the security controls. Open the locks that keep the 'fridges shut and spoil all the food. Look up information about her bitterest enemies. Get all of their secrets and throw them back in their faces, the way they taunt her sometimes about her bony body and bad teeth until she has to fight them to protect herself, her pride, and her back. But that'd be if she had time, and Tamar doesn't have time. She needs information, and she needs to make her move, before the sun rises and the matrons come back and find out what she's done.

It takes a few clicks of the keyboard to bring up her file. She doesn't understand a lot of the words. _From the information gathered through history and observation, the following differential diagnoses can be posited—oppositional defiant disorder—further evaluation needed before diagnosis of conduct disorder_. Tamar might not understand exactly what the words mean, but she knows two things:

They're not fair, and they're not good.

It takes her exactly a minute to make up her mind about what she's going to do, which is that she's gonna blow this popsicle stand (she doesn't know what a popsicle stand is, either, but she thinks it might be something her mom said to her, somewhere in the distant dark of her memories). She doesn't let the other kids out, because that would just be asking to get caught. But with the sharp press of three buttons, she releases the locks on the main orphanage door.

Tamar's always made up her mind easily. Tonight is no different.

She walks down the hallway, opens the door, and steps into the cold night air. 

***

It's dark and she's hungry.

She thinks it might be better to starve on the streets than be fed in _prison_ , but right now, after a few months spent dodging cops and sleeping on doorsteps, her stomach disagrees. She's so hungry she's even gone through the trash receptacles, scrounging for anything worth eating. She's not picky. She ate some moldy bread, she ate some rotten fruit. She ate half a perfectly good burger someone threw in the garbage. She's still hungry and she can still smell the sickly sweet smell of decay in her nose. The only reason she hasn't thrown it up is because she _needs_  that food.

She's pretty sure her mom wouldn't approve, but wherever her mom is, dead or alive, she doesn't give a shit about Tamar anymore.

Tamar picks her target carefully. Not too rich looking. Not anyone who'd kick up a fuss if she got caught. She hasn't moved out of the lower level slums because she'd get picked up in an instant on the surface. Too dirty, too obviously up to no good. But now? Here? She fits right in. Walks slowly, deliberately, down the street, following the older woman.

When she catches up, she bumps into her. "Sorry, sorry," she mutters, cringing away, as the lady startles. Even as she's doing it, her fingers dip into the pockets of the lady's coat, pull out her wallet with its credit card, some dollars (so she's probably on the take too), and other identification. The wallet vanishes into her sleeves, and she stumbles away before the woman can realize what's happened.

She doesn't run, though. That's asking to be caught. 

Instead, she walks slowly, steadily, towards the shadows. 

She almost makes it.

"I saw that," someone says, grabbing her sleeve.

Tamar whirls into fight mode. Just the way she's learned to do these last few weeks. She tries to bite his arm, but he's wearing armor and she chips her front tooth on it. It hurts. She can't be distracted. She starts kicking, instead, as he lifts her up. It's pretty much useless, too. Her shoes are shredding off her feet, and he's still wearing some kind of beat-up body armor. Every kick hurts her toes.

"Whoa," the man says, lifting her up by the collar of her shirt like she's a fucking kitten, "easy." 

She spits in his face.

"Calm _down_ , damn it," the man says, "I'm not gonna hurt you and I'm not gonna turn you in."

"What do you want?" she demands. She's still hanging in the air, kicking. If she wriggles enough she might be able to slip out of the shirt and run before he can follow.

"I saw you take that wallet, but I'm just trying to make you an offer, kid."

"What kind of offer?" She knows all about older men and the kinds of offers they make to little girls, and her stomach twists. She's going to have to kill him, isn't she? She doesn't have any weapons. It's going to be hard. His eyes look like the one weakness right now. Maybe if she jumps...

"My name's Abe," he says, "and I've got a little group of talented folks like you. Always looking for new blood."

"You want me to steal for you?"

"Whoa, whoa," Abe says. "Nothing like that. Just, you know, if you happen to wanna use your skills so you can earn a warm bed at night and some decent food in your belly, the Reds've got your back."

"Yeah?" Tamar asks. She's still hanging sullenly in the air, feet swinging as she tries to get loose. Abe's _really_  strong, even if he doesn't look it. "That's all I gotta do? Nothing else?"

He grins, and for the first time she sees that he's not that old himself, maybe twenty-something. A thick scar mars his left eye. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

"Okay. Now fucking put me _down_."

If anything, Abe's grin gets ever wider. "I think we're gonna get along, kid."

***

Turns out the 10th Street Reds are pretty much exactly what Abe promised. 

They're headquartered in a run-down, abandoned warehouse. It's nothing fancy and nothing special, but to Tamar, it seems like a palace. She turns a flinty glare on the other kids there, though, just in case any of them want to get the wrong idea and try her. 

She knows how this goes. Happens every time she got shifted to a different orphanage after fighting, or messing something up without meaning to. There's always a pecking order and the boss is always eager to prove something. She hated that, showing her belly just to avoid any trouble, so she stopped doing it. The last fight ended with her nose broken and her thumb in the other kid's eye. 

But no one here knows that. To them she's just some skinny street rat, half dead, that Abe dragged in.

"This is Tamar," Abe says to the assembled crew. They're not all kids like her. Some of them look even older than he does. That's something to know. Old people don't usually listen unless you're dangerous or have something on them. So Abe's not just strong. "She's going to be joining the Reds, if she gets through the next few weeks. Expect all of you to give 'er the 10th Street welcome."

"Yes, Abe," the kids chorus, but some of them are staring murderously at her.

Later that night, she lays down in her new bed, but she doesn't sleep because she knows it's coming.

She spends the time listening to her own breath. Preparing. It happens maybe three hours later.

Someone tries to yank the blanket away from her and grab her legs, and she kicks him in the face as hard as she can. 

He squeals and falls back, and then the rest of them are on her.

Tamar knows fights. 

Her greatest strength is mostly getting through them. They can hurt her, but they can't stop her. They can hit her and she'll keep getting up until she can't get up anymore. She's learned most people don't like pain and will do a lot to avoid it. But she can bear it. She can bear a lot. So when she's fighting three scrawny, angry boys at once, it doesn't matter if they land a punch or two or ten, or a few kicks, because she's gonna kick them in the nuts, and she's gonna gouge their eyes, and she's gonna bite the hell out of any of their fingers they make the mistake of putting near her mouth.

Eventually, one of the boys, nose bleeding where she headbutted him, says, "Enough!"

Tamar reels back, scrambling off the bed and into a better position to defend herself. She's bleeding too, unable to keep a snarl off of her lips.

"But Garcia, she—"

"She  _what_?" Garcia demands, glaring at his friend. He's tall for his age (maybe twelve) stocky and well-fed thanks to his time with the Reds. 

"Little cunt  _bit_  me!"

"Yeah, well we started it, Finch. And I guess she's all right. She can fight, at least."

"I'll rip your throat out," Tamar says. She spits some blood on the floor. "I'm not fucking scared of you."

Someone else laughs. "Looks like Abe picked up a real feral this time."

"Shut _up_ ," Garcia snaps, and then looks back at her. "What's your name, kid?"

"Tamar."

"Garcia. Welcome to the Reds."

He extends his hand, but she doesn't take it, too suspicious it's a trap. "You got a funny way of saying hi."

Garcia drops his hand. Rolls his shoulder in a shrug, then makes a long, loud sniff, like he's trying to get rid of a booger. Really, he's snorting the blood back into his nose. He wipes the rest of it away with the back of his hand, smeared in red now. "'S tradition. I got jumped in my first night, too. Just gotta make sure you're not gonna get yourself caught or killed and make trouble for the rest of us."

Tamar wipes her own nose, and holds out her stained hand to him, their blood mingling when they grasp fingers. "Do it again and I'll make you sorry."

Garcia grins at her. "Yeah? Well maybe that'll have to wait until you eat. I could probably push you over with a finger if I wanted to."

"Try it, asshole."

He doesn't.

***

She gets used to the new routine pretty easily. Tamar can get used to a lot. The Reds are a gang like any other gang, and she learns a lot about pickpocketing from them. Garcia is the boss boy of the younger kids, and she made a good impression on him that first night, so she's in their good graces. In his good graces, at least. She and Finch never quite make it to that level, and they spend the next few weeks circling around each other warily. He tries to jump her one night, when she's coming back from a pocketing run, and she breaks two of his fingers, one after another, before he cries _uncle_.

Time passes. 

The Reds aren't a charity, so she works hard. Really fucking hard. She earns her keep. School's an afterthought: as far as official records are concerned, Tamar disappeared two years ago and has never been seen since. 

Abe's never got a reason to complain about bringing her home with him that night.

Garcia's the closest thing she's ever had to a friend. They sleep in the same bed at night and he makes sure Finch doesn't try anything when she's too tired to fight. They watch each others' backs on pickpocketing runs and he teaches her all of the tricks of the trade. They're fast and quick, wham bam in and out before their marks even know they're there. She learns how to break and enter, graduates to burglaries. 

If Tamar was capable of such a thing, she'd almost say she was happy. 

The closest word she has is _satisfied_.

She never really stops to think about whether what they're doing is _wrong._ If people can't take care of their wallets or their property, they don't deserve to keep them. And she's well-fed, got a roof over her head, and no complaints.

***

Tamar's not quite thirteen when she fucks Garcia the first time. Or he fucks her.

She doesn't really think about that, either. It's just something that happens. Everyone does it, sometimes when the other kids are in the room. She doesn't think much about it. It hurts, like many things hurt. And then it's over. 

He's her friend, and they're alone, and it happens.

She doesn't regret it—not exactly—but things change after that, and she regrets _that_. She misses her _friend_.

It happens again, and again, until someone cuts his throat in an alley and she doesn't even know to look for him until he's three hours late coming back to base.

She doesn't know how to feel about that, either. 

***

She's fourteen when Abe comes up to her as she's laying on her back on a cot, reading the news on a datapad.

"Getting bored, Tamar?" he asks, with a grin. He's always smiling, especially these days. The Reds are always growing and always expanding. They took over a new warehouse a few months ago, and it's almost filled with people, kids _everywhere,_  the trash heaps of shit they've stolen and discarded, that needs to be sorted through and sold to fences for untraceable cash.

"Maybe," she says. It's always a gamble, agreeing with Abe when you don't know where he's going with it, exactly. She thinks she's got an idea and she's not sure how she feels about it.

"I think your talents are wasted the way I've been using you, kiddo. I've seen you _fight_."

"Yeah?" She's guarded. As the Reds are expanding, so are their operations. There's pickpocketing, but there's also drugs and lately, guns. Ship theft. Just a few weeks ago she'd been helping hotwire a small passenger shuttle when another, larger ship, further up in the sky had exploded, killing everyone on board and showering Tamar with hot sparks and burning shrapnel. She and Amy had run like hell, leaving the shuttle for its rightful owners to recover. She'd felt pretty nauseous for a few days after that. 

Always a risk, even in the unexpected.

"How'd you like to move up to the next step? Reminding people who need to be reminded who's boss?"

Tamar thinks about it for a minute. She really can't say no, not if Abe's asking. He's kicked people out for less. She owes him. It's not like he pays her, but she has anything she needs. Everything she needs. Boots that fit. And he's right: she's _good_  at it. Finch hasn't come near her since she slowly bent his fingers back, two years ago, smiling at him as his bones snapped and she said, _touch me again, I'll break more than your fingers._ "What d'you have in mind, Boss?"

"I was hoping you'd say that," Abe says, and his grin widens even more. "Follow me." 

***

They go on the first one together, but after that, she goes alone.

It turns out she's very good at it. Abe sends her out on more and more of those errands.

"Please," the man at her feet says, "I'll pay you back, I swear. I just need more time, my wife's sick—"

Tamar looks down at him and feels an unfamiliar stirring in her stomach. Not guilt, exactly. The man had borrowed money and he hadn't paid Abe back. He's dead wrong, no matter what sob story he has to give her. They all have sob stories. Everyone has a dead kid, or a sick kid, or a sick kid with a dead puppy. If she listened to _every_  story, she'd never get any of her jobs done, and Abe would be furious. Well, he'd smile. But she'd know. And she'd pay for it later, somehow. He always finds a way to extract his payment, one way or another.

"That wasn't the deal," she says patiently. She wonders if he's embarrassed by the fact that he's begging a fifteen year old girl for mercy. Some men are. Some men aren't.

"I don't have the money," he whispers. When he looks up at her, his eyes are filled with watery tears. "I'll have it soon. I promise."

"I'm sorry," she says, and she's surprised that she means it. "I have to."

He curls up on the ground, trying to protect himself from the steel toes of her boots. It's useless. Tamar's relentless. But she doesn't take any joy in it.

She leaves him on the ground, sobbing and vomiting, and says, "Have the money next time. This was just a warning."

Tamar shuts his apartment door behind her, and walks quickly down the hallway, hands shoved in her pockets. She smiles at the door guard on the way out, waves.

She knows she'll probably have to be back. 

***

"I think you're almost ready to be a real Red," Abe tells her, later that week, as they both shovel cold noodles into their mouths. Even after four years with Abe and the Reds, Tamar can't quite prevent herself from eating herself sick. A childhood of never knowing where and when her next meal was coming from's left its mark on her, in more ways than one.

Abe's the same way. She thinks it might be why he likes her so much. They get each other. 

"I am a real Red," she says, around a mouthful of gingery pasta.

"Not yet you ain't," Abe says, shaking his head. He pulls the collar of his shirt down, lower and lower, revealing a deep red _10_ tattooed over his heart. "Ain't a real Red until you get one of these. Before that, you're just junior league. The good ol' farm team."

"What do I have to do?" Tamar asks, but really, she already knows.

"Funny you should ask, kiddo," Abe replies. His smile is so wide, and Tamar steels something in her chest. "Red in, red out." 

***

This is what she has to do:

She presses the pistol against the man's temple and doesn't close her eyes when she pulls the trigger.

If she's going to do this, that poor fucker at least deserves her looking at him.

He doesn't die right away, even though he's pretty much gone from the minute the bullet splits his skull. She crouches next to him, waiting until she can't see his chest move anymore. Then she stands, wipes her fingerprints off of the doorknob, and walks out into the cool air.

It's a lovely night. 

***

She turns up the volume on the radio—it's a new band she likes, heavy bass and screeching guitar, featuring samples taken from an FTL drive jumping the relays instead of percussion—and aims the pistol. One. Two. Three shots. Not quite in the center of the target. She frowns, reloads, and tries again. Of all of her duties lately, with the Reds, the only time she really feels _at peace_  is target practice. It's just her and the gun, vision narrowing as she aims. Easy enough to lose track of time. Easy enough to forget the things she doesn't want to remember.

Abe turns down the music when he comes in, shaking his head. "Is this what you're listening to? Fuck, music's changed since I was your age."

"Abe," she says, lowering the pistol.

"Good work on those last few jobs, kiddo. You're doing me and the Reds proud. I think it's time for you to _officially_  join."

"Okay," Tamar says. She pauses. "Abe?"

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"How much did that man owe you? The first one?"

"Why?" Abe's soft brown eyes, eyes that've always reminded her a little of a hound dog's, narrow as he looks at her. "You got second thoughts?"

"Fuck, no. I was just curious."

"Does it matter? A hundred, two hundred credits, maybe?"

That twisting feeling's back in her stomach. "It doesn't matter."

Later that night, Abe tattoos the _10_  on her chest himself, right over her heart, with a little machine he jury rigged from a miniature engine, a needle, an ancient pen, and some ink. It doesn't hurt, really. It feels kind of like being scratched by a cat, if the cat's claws were heated up. She can feel the needle jarring over her ribs, and holds her breath. It hurts, but she's used to pain. There are hoots of laughter from the kids watching, because of course Abe had to pull her shirt down to do it, but she glares at them, _daring_  them to say anything. They know who she is and what she's done, and that's enough for some of them. She remembers the faces of the assholes—Finch, and Curt particularly—who don't. They'll get theirs one day, she's sure.

"There," Abe says, blotting the blood away. Pulling back to admire his work. "What d'you think?"

She cranes her neck back to try and actually see it. "Looks good, I guess."

"Well, you're one of us now, kiddo."

"Red in," Tamar says, "red out."

***

It gets easier, and it doesn't get easier.

She never _likes_  killing people, not like some of the other Reds. 

She does it because she has to.

She does a lot of things because she has to.

***

In five years with the Reds, she argues with Abe exactly once when he tells her she needs to kill someone, whatever her private feelings about the matter. This time, the mark's a turian mercenary who's been pushing in on Reds territory.

"It's just business, Abe. He doesn't _owe_  you anything. He didn't do anything _wrong_. I don't even think he knows shit about us."

"This is just business," Abe says. His smile never fades, but it never reaches his eyes. "He's taking money away from us, he's going to be trouble, and I want you to end him before it gets worse and we _really_  take a hit."

"It just seems like it's gonna get us some attention. Unnecessary attention."

"That's why I'm using you. You're always in and out before anyone knows what happened."

"I just don't fucking like it."

"I don't keep you around for your opinions, kiddo." 

She does it because she has to.

She kills the mercenary but not before he almost kills her. She gets the drop on him, late at night, when he's not expecting it. It's a bitter fight in that back alley. Talons against knives. She kicks the gun out of his hands, but not before he shoots her in the stomach. It's almost sheer luck that she manages to get her knife in between the plates in his neck. He drops to the ground, gargling blood, and she stumbles back to the warehouse, carefully holding her guts in with one hand, and prays to a god she doesn't really believe in that she's not going to die.

Abe gets her to back-alley doctor who puts her guts back where they're supposed to be and seals her back up again.

She doesn't die. 

She keeps killing.

***

She's seventeen when she fucks everything up beyond any hope of repair.

She'd been up late the night before, guarding the backs of some of the older Reds during a heist, and up early to help train some of the new kids they've picked up from the streets in pickpocketing techniques. She's sitting at the table, nursing a cup of coffee and staring dreamily at the datapad, too tired to even really lift it. She'd like to read the news—she really would—but she's just so... tired...

The datapad shivers on the table, slowly, before it lifts up and floats towards her, entirely free of her hands. It takes her a second to realize what she's doing, and then she panics.

_Shitfuckpiss_ shit.

It drops again, with a clatter.

She looks up and sees Finch watching her, a nasty smile on his face.

"Don't you fucking—" she starts, but she already knows it's too late. He's gonna tell Abe.

Abe comes to see her later that night, and claps her heartily on the back. "So, kiddo. I hear you've got some biotic potential you've been hiding from me."

"I don't. I didn't know. I'm not—"

"Hey, hey, easy there, I'm not _mad_ ," Abe says, smiling. His hand on her shoulder is warm and heavy, but not comforting. "This is fucking exciting, kiddo! My own personal biotic warrior—just think of the possibilities we're gonna have once we get you some implants. They just came out with those fancy new L3s, too, less side effects—"

The bottom drops out of her stomach. "I don't _want_  implants. I didn't know I had potential, I don't _want_  to be a biotic."

"Hey, hey, kiddo, what did I tell you about what you _want_?" The smile is easy, pleasant, but his voice is hard. 

She knows she's treading dangerous ground here. "I just—Abe, I don't want to have surgery. I don't want anyone digging around in my _head_." Her mind's the only thing she has left that's hers and hers alone. Her life—even her body—are Abe's. They belong to the Reds. But her mind? That's _hers_. 

Or it was.

She's starting to think she was wrong about that too.

"Kiddo, I hate to tell you, but you really don't have a choice in the matter. I love you, and I've raised you like my own, but the fact is that as you are now, you're expendable. There are a hundred thousand kids on the street with just your set of talents, and you know I'm good at finding them. As a biotic? Unregistered, on the loose? Hell, kiddo, you don't know what we could do together. I'm itching to tell you the things I'm thinking... but you know, if you say no, that's your choice... But no one would miss you. I could kill you and have someone to fill your place before the sun rises. I'd be real sorry about it, of course. But I'd do it."

She knew that, of course. She always knew it, that the relationship she and Abe had wasn't built on anything except her usefulness to him. But fuck does it hurt to hear it. She exhales. "When do we go?"

"Soon as I can make the arrangements, kiddo. You're making the right choice. We're gonna do _great_  things together."

***

The night after it happens, she goes home, and she throws up until she doesn't have anything left in her stomach. Then she throws up some more. Part of it is that she feels sick, but a lot of it is just... disgust.

It takes a few weeks to recover from the surgery and a few weeks more to actually get _used_ to the new machinery in her head. She sometimes thinks she can feel them in there, foreign objects that just aren't right, but she knows that's probably her imagination. 

And as for the power... she doesn't like to use it, not if she can help it. Abe makes her practice, sits there clapping in glee whenever she throws something across the room, or whenever she successfully uses a barrier to repel a rock he throws at her head.

Whenever she does it, she feels a little sick.

She's made up her mind. 

She's going to leave.

***

It happens like this:

"I'm out," she tells Abe. "I'm done. I'm fucking done."

Other than that, it's been a routine night, with him coming to her with a job. A new mark. But somehow she's just had enough. That's the last fucking straw.

"I don't think so, kiddo," Abe says.

That's _it_. She snaps. Everything that's been building up inside of her, all of these years, the fury at her lack of choices, all of the blood on her hands, Abe's smiling face and warm words and completely ruthless proposals, at Garcia's hands and his death and Finch's lurking in the shadows, just waiting for her to fuck up, all of it—all of that rages explodes. The warehouse is empty—everyone else is out working—and that's the only reason she can afford to make her move without being riddled with bullets after. She sees her opening, and she takes it. She lashes out with her biotics—the ones he's _forced_  her to develop—and throws him, hard, against the wall. He's the largest thing she's ever moved, but his body flies up to the wall with the force of her pure rage and slams into it so sharp that she can hear the sound of bones breaking.

He lands in a crumpled heap on the floor, trying and failing to stand.

"You're going to _regret_  that—" he starts.

"No," she says. "No. I'm not. I'm going to walk out this fucking door and you're going to let me." 

"I'll find you," Abe says, spitting out a broken tooth, "I'll find you and I'll fucking kill you."

"You can try," Tamar says, and puts her barriers up—not too late, because he's already firing at her.

She walks out the door with her head up, shoulders back. Bullets bouncing off her barrier.

For the second time in a decade, Tamar walks into her new life.

***

She's not exactly free, of course. She knows that Abe will find her—she's more than just a member of the Reds now, she's an _investment_. He spent good money on those implants, on a shady doctor he could bribe not to report them all to the authorities. She can't let her guard down because if she does, someone's going to kill her. It's only a matter of time.

So she needs to get offworld, and there are about two ways to do that, and the Navy's the most likely route for someone who's effectively lived off the grid for the last six years.

The recruiter raises his eyebrows a little when she shows up early on the morning of April 11, 2071. 

"Name?"

"Shepard," she says. "Tamar Shepard."

"And why do you want to join the Navy, Ms. Shepard?"

"I want to serve the Alliance. Sir. See the world. Fight the good fight," she lies through her teeth.

She's expecting her lack of a high school diploma to cause more trouble than it does, but apparently they're really that hard up for warm bodies. She's sure as hell not getting commissioned as an officer, but then, she never expected that. She'll clean the fucking toilets if it means getting away from the Reds and away from Abe.

The physical's a little dicier.

The doctor checking her out stares at the bloody _10_  on her chest. "You know this is a gang tattoo, Ms. Shepard?"

"Is it?" she says, eyes wide, voice shocked. "I just got it during a flash sale during a regrettable—my _only_  night of drinking."

"Hmmm," says the doctor, but Tamar gets a pass anyway.

She walks out the door and onto the shuttle that's ready to ship her off to basic. She thinks, briefly, about the last time she did this. Here's fucking hoping the next segment of her life involves more... hell, she doesn't even know. She's leaving Tamar behind in New York. Shepard's the one she's got to be now. A good recruit. A stalwart soldier. Reliable. Honest. Good.

She's not sure if she can do it—if she can pull it off—but she's sure as hell going to try.

"So what's your story?" one of the other recruits on the shuttle asks her, as they stare out the window into the dark.

Shepard rests her forehead against the glass and says, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

She watches until she can see the city glowing beneath them. It's only then that she allows herself to exhale.

She's out. She's  _free_.


End file.
